Harry Potter and the Variability of Fate
by Machina Ex Deus
Summary: Within the moments between a moment, Harry is filled with the knowledge of the future. Every future. Every story we've written about him, every fate he's carried, everything he's ever been and ever will be. How does he handle the Variability of Fate?


_So I had a thought. I think everyone has seen the fic where Harry gets knowledge of his future, or goes back in time and uses his future knowledge to change things. Well, most of the time, he only gets a single future, something where he messed up, or failed to kill Voldypants. So here I am thinking, what if he didn't receive just one future? What if he saw every possible future thought up by us fanwriters? How would an eleven year old deal with seeing every possible reality imaginable?_

_And I just had to write this. It was fun. I swear the voice I heard reading it in my head was Subject 16 from Assassin's Creed, but I think it turned out at least passable, if not mediocre. I tried to throw in tidbits from other fics that I've read, and I've got a list of credits at the bottom. Try to find all of the references for fun and invisible prizes!  
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_~Machina Ex Deus_

**Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not my property. It belongs to JK and the publishers and such. The fanfiction works I indirectly reference are not mine either, but are very good in my humble opinion.**_  
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><p><em><strong>Harry Potter and the Variablity of Fate<strong>_

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><p>Whoever said knowledge was power, obviously knew this was going to happen. It was probably Fate, bitch that she is.<p>

Well, let's get introductions out of the way first, I guess. I'm Harry, Harry Potter. And to be completely honest, I could be a lot more than that. I'm a parselmouth pretty much all the time, and an animagus sometimes; a wolf, a phoenix, a panther, a tiger, a stag like my father, an Imperial Arch Griffin, and so much more. I'm a Time Mage, a Seer, a Metamorphmagus, I think I've even been a girl a couple times, though I don't care to experience that again. I'm good. I'm evil. I'm right. I'm wrong. I stood for the Light. I fell to the Dark. I hovered somewhere in between. But most of all, I died.

And oh how I died! So many times. So many ways, though oddly never Avada Kedavra. I guess I'm just lucky like that. I never have to die the surprisingly painless way. Beheadings, disembowelment, magical overload, complete magical exhaustion, a Blasting Curse through a lung… the list goes on, but you get the idea. But I'm not sure exactly how I've died. I mean, I'm here, now, alive and well, relatively speaking. The Dursleys have never been kind… or have they? I think I remember one where they were pretty nice. One in a million that is, but I guess I can hold to hope even for them. Huh, maybe Albus was right. Still, right once in a couple million times isn't enough to shake a stick at.

Oh, right. Um… I guess I'll start with the memories. Or are they glimpses of the future? I really can't tell. I mean, there's a ton of them out there, in here, where ever they are. Where was I? Oh! Memories. Right. Well, it all started on my eleventh birthday. At least, I think it did. Maybe it was my twenty-fourth? Gah! It's hard to tell when the visions end and the memories begin. They're not all me, and they are. They were. They could be. They can't be. Of course they are.

Anyway, eleventh twenty-fourth birthday. I had started receiving the letters from Hogwarts, and Vernon Dursley kept them out of reach. We had arrived on the island, like so many times before, and will so many times again, on the 30th of July, 1991. I had drawn myself a little picture of a birthday cake, and was getting ready to blow out the dust candles as the countdown from Dudley's watch was chipping away at the seconds, and slowly, ever so slowly, the time became 11:59 and 59 seconds.

And then time froze for a bit.

I think I'd normally be shocked by this. I mean, time doesn't up and freeze itself, even if that infernal clock is broken by now… or is it still together? And what happened to that gods forsaken city? Maybe I'll find out someday. Wouldn't be a bad way to spend an afternoon… or a couple hundred.

Anyway, Time froze. Time doesn't usually up and freeze itself… wait, I said that. No. past that. The memories. Right. Now's the time for the memories. I saw them. All of them. It was as damning as it was beautiful. I swear, I think a universe exploded just so I could get all of this. I saw everything.

Now, a lot of people say that time is either fixed or fluid. That you either can or can't change the future with knowledge you can somehow obtain. Now, as odd as it is, neither of them are wrong. But nor are they entirely right. The future, as I can understand it, is split into two things. Things that matter, and things that don't. Me fighting Tommykins is part of the first. What I had for breakfast yesterday, pancakes I think, is part of the second. The idea that Fate governs your entire destiny is stupid and completely and utterly halfway right. You see, Fate sort of sets itself up so that big events that must happen can happen and the little things get wormed into the big things so that the whole of reality lines up with whatever Fate had planned for that afternoon.

Sorry, Hermione always said that I'm not very good at explaining. Probably why I married her so many times. Ginny could understand me, but Hermione could explain me. And for the life of me I can't tell which I value more. one? the other? Both? We'll go with both. Different ways, mind you, but similarly different enough to not minding either.

Okay. Well, I guess it all comes back to prophecy. Yeah, I know. It should drive me nuts, thinking about the words Fate spoke that pretty much forced me into this whole ordeal. But prophecy becomes a bit more comforting when you realize that the whole of reality is bound to it as tightly as you are. The prophecy between me and Tom, well, it's one of those things that matter. Tom and I have to fight. Whether as an epic battle of good versus evil, order versus chaos, or even as two evils trying to take over each other and rule the world, Tom and I have to fight. Fate Spoke, you see. When the Voice of Fate speaks, it has to happen. And with this knowledge, comes an even greater realization.

Fate never said How.

The How, the way you do it, is never really mentioned in any sort of recorded prophecy or foretelling. Now, a lot of people say that divining the future through prophecy and such is a waste of time. Then again, maybe that was just Neenie. She's never liked Divination. Still, it's the very thing that holds our universes together. The ability to predict the future to some degree, the What but never the How, leaving the rest of the questions up to the variability of Fate.

So the method for fulfilling prophecy, unlike the prophecy itself, is not fixed at all. That's what the Variability of Fate is. It's every possible way that a prophecy could happen. Every way that anyone could live their lives. The smallest details shifting slightly to change the whole. It's the butterfly effect, chaos theory, and Murphy's law all rolled into one terrible and magnificent whole. And that night, in the space between moments when time froze… I saw it.

Merciful gods, I saw it. Life and death and Marriage and children and war and blood and success and failure, oh so much failure. I think I've seen more ways to lose the fight against Tom than I have seen ways to win. He just seems to be… I don't know, better than me at this whole war thing. He pushes, and I react. I search for a way to win while he simply instills terror to insure he doesn't lose. Did you know he set up an actual Taboo on his name? For the super smart me's out there, and I know you're out there, in here, where ever, that's a freaking Class 4 Taboo, complete with causality manipulation. For the not really smart me's out there, in here, where ever, that means if you aren't sufficiently strong of will, there's a subtle compulsion that makes you fear his name and will never say it if you can help it. Saying it anyway will actually create unlucky things to happen, or give you a sort of unexplainable paranoia about something that may happen because you said an anagram of Tom Marvolo Riddle.

The watch still says 11:59. It's been that way for a while. I've got no idea how long it's been since Time left on it's little coffee break. I've been awash with the memories and the visions and the everything that I've seen. Maybe it's been days, hidden in a moment? Maybe this is how long moments actually are?

But the memories, past and future and full of hope and fear! I saw worlds burn and die, lifetimes lived in happiness, and battles great and terrible. I've seen lives of mine where I've ran from Tom, not even knowing how to defeat him. I've seen him be only a simple nuisance that I swatted away in my free time between stealing kisses from various girls. Past, present and future have blurred together to make all of the possibilities that I could have had echo throughout the twisting caverns of my mindspace. And it doesn't help that I've travelled back in time for a few of them. seeing my other lives is never quite as confusing as seeing an alternate me going through deja vu.

Still, the weddings were always nice. I swear, I can remember being married to literally every girl who'd be in my year at Hogwarts, even the Slytherins. I still don't know what I saw when I look at them, though. But honestly, even if the memories never happened, they're pretty much what's keeping me going some days. Remembering happy years that never were with Ginny, or Hermione, or Fleur, or Susan, or any of the others. I think I even married Tonks a few times. These happy years that may yet exist are probably the only things keeping me… well, not sane, but something akin to it. Perhaps a very convincing act?

But where was I? Oh, Fate. What a bitch. Tells you that you have to do something and doesn't even give you the courtesy of telling you how in the name of the immortal precepts you're supposed to do it?

But that's not the important bit. I'll get to the important bit. So I saw the variability of Fate. All of the ways that Harry James Potter could have grown up, all of the ways I did grow up, with parents, without parents, with one parent, with Padfoot, and there was that one really interesting life with a married Moony and Padfoot. You almost feel bad for their wives. Still, that was a good life. I had brothers and sisters. I usually don't have those. It's nice to have, even if one of them is Draco.

But the important bit! Right. It's what I saw. I didn't just see me grow up though. I saw the war. There's usually a war. I fight Tom, Tom fights me. Dumbledore tries to control people with varying degrees of success. When you look over all of reality and every possibility to ever exist, Albus seemed to usually have good intentions. Heh, well, the road to six of the nine hells is paved with good intentions. Usually he's got his heart in the right place, but his methods… well, who am I to complain? I can see myself doing a lot of what he did knowing what I know now. Would I honestly tell a young wizard that may be the key to the salvation of the world as we knew it that he would have to sacrifice himself without any perceivable ulterior motive to destroy the soul fragment in his head without dying himself?

Hell no. I'd string him along as well as any puppet master. I'd build his confidence. Give him things he could handle, like basilisks, dragons, shades and convicted felons. I'd put off until the last minute, giving him the minimum tools to finish the job, and have the utmost faith in the way I interpreted the prophecy. I'd probably make sure that the situation was sufficiently hopeless before revealing exactly what the he would have to do, and even then I'd need some way to keep him off balance. Perhaps I'd even leave some insurance, letting the fight between him and Tom play out and let them decide a winner, before my plan destroys the Dark Lord utterly. Yeah, that could work. Now… where have I heard that before? Hmm... I think that was one of the ones that worked. Probably.

Heh. I called Tom the Dark Lord. I sound like a Death Muncher. Still, I think "Dark Lord Tommykins" has a nice ring to it, don't you?

But where was I? Albus? Oh yeah. Fun thing about Albus is how you have to deal with him. Sometimes, you have to hold everything close to the chest, making him sweat to get a glimpse of your machinations. Sometimes, you have to show exactly where he went wrong, flinging it in his face and breaking his spirit before reminding him of his own humanity and fallibility. And yet, despite all of this, I really think he's not a bad person. People make mistakes in relative size to their importance and influence. When someone like Bertha Jorkins makes a mistake, she might get fired. When Albus 'I took out the last Dark guy' Dumbledore makes a mistake, people can die. He tries his best, but in the end, Ole Alby makes mistakes, and on a scale that can really hurt those involved.

I think, with all of the different lifetimes that I've seen and felt and bled and lived, that I've gotten a pretty good handle on my old chum Albus Percival 'I forgot the other ones' Dumbledore. He's one of those people you don't trust blindly, as it could get you killed for his mistakes, but someone you can trust a little bit. Still, there's a lesson there. Don't completely trust a man if you can't remember all of his middle names.

Still 11:59. I wonder if the watch is broken, or if I'm broken or Time's broken. Damn clock. Probably all three.

But I went off on a tangent there. Where was I? Memories, Fate, marriage, war, Albus… War! That's the one. I saw the War. The Second Death Eater War, usually starts early 1995 or so, and lasting anywhere from two years to six months to fifteen minutes to a decade or three. And really, there's only a few things that I really and truly learned from all these wars.

People die in them.

I know it sounds stupid, but when I've looked at Ron loads of times and flinched when I see his intestines around his neck, or he's on fire, or bleeding out on the ground, or killed horribly some other way, you just sort of notice these things. One of the worst ones is when I saw him, and he turned into me, just to die off. He's a prat at times, and really doesn't act his age, surprisingly hard for an eleven year old, but he's a good friend. Come to think, his mum's probably the reason for his immaturity. It's called mollycoddling for a reason, eh?

I know, Ginny rolled her eyes at that one too.

But War. War is one of those things that I can't stop. I see it too many times in my memories, visions, glimpses of futures not yet and pasts that weren't and things that could and shouldn't be. It always comes, and I always fight, and really, that's all the prophecy says that I have to do. Whether I win, or Tommykins gets me, which he has more than once, is up really up to the Variability of Fate.

I'll probably become some hero or warrior or something by the time all this is over. But in the end, I'm just Harry Potter. But look through my memories. See the lives I've led. I think you'll find that that's more than enough.

12:00. Finally. Happy eleventh twenty fourth birthday, Harry James Potter. It's time to save the world again, and hurry. You're on the clock.

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><p><em>When I started writing this out, I didn't want to go for the whole "Harry uses the knowledge and power shoved in his head to win effortlessly" cliché. He always seems to be able to handle all of the information pushed on him. So I wanted something that would be completely too much for him to handle. Unbalance him a little. See what happens. The one thing I am afraid of, however, is that I made Harry sound too crazy. But still, it's just a oneshot, not the end of the world.<strong><br>**_

_**Major fics I've specifically alluded to or referenced in no particular order:**_

_**A Better Man by Valandar**_

_**The Dangerverse by Anne Walsh, aka whydoyouneedtoknow**_

_**Harry Potter and the Wastelands of Time by Joe6991**_

_**Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Future Past by S'TarKan**_

_**Backwards with Purpose: Always and Always by Deadwoodpecker**_

_**The End and the Beginning by Muggledad**_

_**The Order of the Pheonix by Ruskbyte**_

_**Defense for Two by Darth Marrs**_

_If you liked it, Review and tell me! If you didn't, review and yell at me and tell me what I could do better! If I made a reference and forgot about it, then call me on it for cookies and bonus points!_

_~Machina Ex Deus**  
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